Archive for Things to do

Blackberry, SlingMedia, SlingPlayer Mobile

Saturday, 3 January 2009 Applications, Blackberry, Communication, Film, Gadgets, Mobile, Things to do, TV No comments

I’ve been waiting a long time for this, but it’s finally arrived. The SlingPlayer Mobile for Blackberry. I installed it onto my Bold and within minutes I was up and running. A very solid and polished application. For those of you who aren’t aware of Sling, take a look at their site here. A Sling box connects to your tuner (in my case my Comcast DVR cable box) and allows you to watch and control said box from anywhere in the world.

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I have a trusty original Sling box from a few years ago and credit to Sling, they still support and maintain it. In fact, I’ve just downloaded some new firmware.

The application itself for the Blackberry is a little on the large size at around 1.5MB. If you haven’t got a newer type of Blackberry, you should even go there. Once I installed, I was using it quite quickly. I had one hitch in that you have to use the Windows version of SlingPlayer to configure mobile viewing – you can’t do this with the Mac. So, I had to go and drag out my trusty laptop running Vista! Once I had configured the software, the Slingbox and my Blackberry – I was nearly there! A quick tweak of my router to allow the correct port through for remote viewing and I was there.

Sling make this really easy for you with great FAQs, online help, video – and specific walkthroughs for various routers. The application itself works like a dream over wifi – and also over 3G. It can even at a push with a full signal scrape by on EDGE/GPRS – but not well.

I’m extremely pleased with this and it was well worth the wait – I’m just waiting to see how long it is before mobile operators start getting grumpy about bandwidth…

Playstation Home

Thursday, 11 December 2008 Applications, Communication, Gadgets, Gaming, Personal, Playstation, Software, Things to do, TV No comments

After a faulty start (and still some teething problems) I have eventually got into the virtual world of Sony Playstation Home. The icon appeared automatically this evening, and after a download, install and accepting around three terms and conditions screens, it all fired up.

I first had to pick my avatar. I was tempted to make it look dashing and cool, but my conscience got the better of me and I tried to keep it as true to life as possible.

Once in, I arrived at my private sea-side?apartment. Very relaxing overlooking the quay. I then ventured into the town, hit the stores, played pool, had a go at bowling, then looked at some of the art work.

It seemed pretty busy in the virtual world this evening and it looks to be very popular.

Here I am sat on a bench in the plaza watching the world go by… (if anyone is looking for me my handle is NMANSA)

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You can find out more about Playstation Home here. Below there’s a short video clip of me in the Plaza for the first time having a boogie with some other randoms…!

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